Mobile payments will be a “great driver” for Visa, CEO Charles Scharf has told analysts during the company’s Q4 earnings call, and Apple Pay is just the beginning. “A proliferation of exciting mobile and digital solutions” leveraging Visa’s capabilities will hit the market soon, he explained. More
A majority of Americans (60%) would be comfortable divulging information about themselves anonymously to their favourite stores, a new survey from Wearables.com and The Center for Generational Kinetics reveals... More
The former head of Google Wallet has unveiled a payment terminal supporting mag stripe, EMV, NFC, QR codes and beacon technology with no add-ons or dongles needed... More
Payment processing solutions provider Kili Technology has unveiled a line of solution-on-a-chip processors that “allow designers to quickly bring to market certifiable mobile point-of-sale terminals that support all modes of payment including magnetic stripe, EMV contact and EMV contactless (via NFC) with the highest levels of security in the industry.” The processors go into production early in 2015... More
The Mayor’s Fund for London has launched Penny for London, a service that automatically collects small charitable donations when commuters use their contactless cards to pay for journeys on the Transport for London (TfL) network... More
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US quick-service restaurant chain Taco Bell has launched a mobile ordering and payment app that lets customers place their orders through a customisable menu and complete a payment using a stored Taco Bell card, credit card or debit card before arriving at the counter. More
UK Football League sponsor Sky Bet has installed Bluetooth beacons at Elland Road, Leeds and the New York Stadium, Rotherham to send offers to football fans as part of a pilot project that could be rolled out to other locations across the country... More
“Within the last 36 hours, we learned that unauthorized third parties obtained the email addresses of some of our CurrentC pilot program participants and individuals who had expressed interest in the app,” retailer-owned mobile payments consortium MCX has revealed. More
Samsung will launch a mobile money transfer service in Korea at the end of this year in partnership with mobile payment service provider Yelopay and six banks, Korea Bizwire reports... More
“Much of the conversation the past couple of days has been misinformed about the product MCX is developing, so we’d like to set the record straight,” the retailer-owned consortium says in a detailed blog post outlining its position and plans for its CurrentC mobile wallet that has been published in response to criticism of the decision taken by member merchants CVS and Rite Aid to pull support for NFC payments... More
A 26-page white paper that explores the role of the trusted service manager (TSM) and whether they can help or hinder the globalisation of NFC services is now available for download in the NFC World+ Knowledge Centre. More
McDonald’s 14,000 restaurants and drive-thru locations across the US have begun accepting Android NFC mobile payments following a successful pilot program with carrier joint venture Softcard that began in 2013... More
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Apple Pay saw more than one million card activations within 72 hours of launch and is already the leading NFC payments player in the US, Apple CEO Tim Cook has revealed during the Wall Street Journal’s WSJDLive event. Cook also outlined future growth plans for the service, including a potential partnership with Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba. More
There will be some 516m users of NFC mobile payment services by the end of 2019, up from 101m this year, thanks to the launch of Apple Pay and HCE, a forecast from Juniper Research has found... More
“Merchants large and small make business decisions every single day based upon what makes the best sense for the business, their associates and most importantly, their customers,” says Mallory Duncan, senior vice president of the US’s National Retail Federation, in a statement issued in the wake of the decision taken by CVS and Rite Aid to stop accepting Apple Pay and other NFC payments. More
“The decision by CVS and Rite Aid to block mobile payments services like Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Softcard is anti-consumer and anti-competitive,” says US-based trade body the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), following the MCX consortium members’ decision to stop accepting NFC payments. More
Apple has included an NFC chip in its new iPad Mini 3, a teardown by iFixit has revealed... More
US pharmacy chains Rite Aid and CVS, both members of the MCX retailer-owned consortium which is due to launch its CurrentC mobile payment service in 2015, have stopped accepting NFC payments in the wake of the launch of Apple Pay. More
Proximity marketing specialist Swirl has unveiled an in-store programmatic ad exchange that enables retailers and brands to reach consumers with relevant content and offers on their smartphones while they shop at participating locations. The service supports Bluetooth beacons today and will be expanded to include NFC “and other mobile engagement technologies” in the future. More
Payment processor SIA has launched a peer-to-peer payments service that lets users send and receive money in real-time with their smartphone. Based on the Sepa Credit Transfer scheme, Jiffy is available to all banks operating in the Single Euro Payments Area, opening it up to a potential 400 million consumers. More